Similipal world’s only tiger reserve with melanistic big cats

Bhubaneswar: The Similipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district is the world’s only landscape that is home to melanistic tigers.
Having no contiguity with any neighbouring such reserve, Similipal’s 2,750 sqkm landscape offers little scope for tigers to mate with big cats of other reserves.
This has resulted in in-breeding (mating among themselves) and the offspring developing melanism (black pigmentation), wildlife experts said.
The 2016 all-India tiger estimation had revealed that the reserve had three adult melanistic tigers.
“Though a tiger census should have been undertaken in 2020, it couldn’t be carried out because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) counted the big cats only this year, the results of which are expected in July. It is only then that the exact number of normal and melanistic tigers present in the Similipal reserve will be known. We are yet to ascertain whether there has been a further rise in the melanistic big cat population,” Sai Kiran, deputy director (Similipal north division), said.
Kiran said the tigers that are being called melanistic in Similipal are actually pseudo-melanistic because they have black stripes with yellow stripes also interspersed on their bodies. “So far our knowledge and study goes, melanistic tigers are born if there is genetic repetition in mating. It is not necessary that all in-breeding will lead to melanistic offspring. In a nutshell, if there are no genetic variations, melanistic tigers may be born,” he explained.
The authorities have sighted the melanistic adult tigers several times directly and in camera traps in the core areas of the reserve in the past. They have been found to be quite healthy and agile though they look slightly different from the normal breed.
Kiran said the work on landscape linking with neighbouring forest or sanctuary of the state or outside the state is on. “We are trying to work out landscape linking so that big cats from other sanctuary (with different gene pool) come to Similipal and vice versa,” he said.